The Allahabad High Court has held that a senior citizen who alleges that a gift deed of his property is a forgery cannot have it declared void by the Tribunal under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007.

It held that Section 23(1) of the Act presupposes a valid transfer made on the condition that the transferee will provide the senior citizen basic amenities and basic physical needs, and is attracted only where that condition is broken. It held that a plea that the deed was never executed at all lies before the civil court.

The bench of Justice J.J. Munir and Justice Indrajeet Shukla held,

“if the case of a senior citizen, howsoever related to the transferee, is that the transferee secured the gift or other conveyance by actual practice of fraud, coercion, undue influence or forgery, as in this case, it is certainly not the Tribunal, that would have jurisdiction to act at the instance of the senior citizen and declare the conveyance void.”

“It can only be the Court of ordinary original civil jurisdiction, competent to try an action, that can entertain the aggrieved senior citizen's suit on that ground to cancel the conveyance or the gift deed, which the senior citizen says, is the result of forgery. Of course, other reliefs to establish his tile and possession are to be had in the same action before the Civil Court.”

The petitioner, aged 68, submitted that his daughter and son-in-law got a registered gift deed dated 18.11.2023 fabricated in the daughter's favour in respect of his house at Lalitpur, his only shelter. It was pleaded that it does not bear his signatures, and on its strength they assaulted him and dispossessed him. The deed, he pleaded, carries no stipulation obliging the daughter to maintain him.

His representations under Sections 22 and 23 of the Act went unattended, and the District Magistrate, Lalitpur rejected his application for eviction on 23.06.2026. Accordingly, he approached the High Court.

The Court held that the Tribunal's power to evict is incidental to securing maintenance and basic needs or protecting the life and property of a senior citizen, and it is no court of general civil jurisdiction competent to adjudicate title.

Referring to its earlier Bench decision in Shyamji Shukla v. State of U.P., it reiterated that the Tribunal exercises no plenary jurisdiction akin to a civil court. Testing the claim, the Court put the question to itself:

“If Garima Yadav were not the petitioner's daughter, and Devendra Singh Yadav, respondent no. 3, his son-in-law, could he have, on the allegations set forth in his application to the Tribunal, maintained his application for declaring the gift deed void on the ground that it is a forged document? We think not.”

The Court held that Section 23(1) of the Act creates a new statutory right: where the transferee breaks the condition of looking after the senior citizen, the transfer is by a fiction of law treated as one obtained by fraud, coercion or undue influence, and may at the transferor's election be declared void. That is not a wide power to impeach the validity of a document, held the Court.

The Court also faulted the District Magistrate for setting up committees to inquire into the alleged forgery, and cautioned District Magistrates and Sub-Divisional Magistrates across the State against deciding cases under the Act in the administrative fashion they are used to.

“We must caution Tribunals across the State that when discharging a judicial or a quasi-judicial function under a Statute, procedure for taking proceedings under the Statute must be that which the law prescribes. Even otherwise, as a general principle of law, wherever, not just Courts, but Tribunals having the trappings of a Court are invested with jurisdiction to decide finally rights or interest of parties, the administrative way of working, entrusting matters to committees to undertake an inquiry is quite foreign to the scheme of things.”

Holding that the challenge to the gift deed fell wholly outside the scope of proceedings under the Act, the Court dismissed the writ petition, clarifying that the petitioner may enforce his rights before the competent civil court.

Case Title: Balveer Singh vs. State of Uttar Pradesh and others 2026 LiveLaw (AB) 759

Case Citation: 2026 LiveLaw (AB) 759

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